Anger can be a bitterness that devours your soul while righteous indignation is morally driven, it's ethically driven.

Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense.

Music is what we need when language fails us, but we cannot remain silent.

I think it's important not to view Martin Luther King Jr. in a narrow political manner. His fundamental commitment is to a radical love of humanity, and especially of poor and working people. And that radical love leads him to a radical analysis of power, domination and oppression. What's difficult is to situate him ideologically under a particular category.

I was a gangster when I was young. I had a Robin Hood mentality and tended to always want to support the weak against the strong, but sometimes it was cohesive and I really needed to fall in love with the power of education to find the right venue to express my rage. I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes.

There is something about boldness and fearlessness and being free enough to speak what is on one's mind that warrants freedom.

To be great in our times too often means to have great prosperity and no moral magnanimity at all.